Pucon

Soooo...in Pucon i stayed with Nicos family. They have a second little house at the bottom of their garden which they sometimes rent out. I stayed there with Pinky and Juan (they both worked in the park in El Colorado and came down to visit too).

It was just like being up in El Colorado...All the same people. Loads of the bar staff, and cafe people came from Pucon, so there was a nice group of friends.On the first night we had all the friends round for some ´copetes´(drinks) and all got a little tiddly. I went to bed a bit earlier and left my laptop out with music playing. Pinky put it away in the cupboard to keep it safe when he went to bed, and most the people that were round stayed and slept on the sofa and in the other bedrooms. When we all woke up, my laptop was gona along with mine and pinkys cameras...luckily my wallet wasnt with all that stuff. Juans sunglasses and possibly pinkys snowboarding gloves were also taken. We thought about whether it could have been anyone that had been round, and who stayed up later and left, but Nicos good friends with them all and doesnt think it was any of them. We had left the window open, and apparently the neighbours are a bit dodgy and quite poor, so possibly it was them. Its scary to think somebody came into the house while we were sleeping, there were 3 people sleeping in the lounge, and 2 or 3 in each of the bedrooms. Our stuff that got nicked was in an empty bedroom. Major bummer.

We went to the police, but i dont think they really do much anyway. If they come across it i guess theyll let me know, and all of our friends in Pucon know what the stuff looks like if they get offered to buy anything. So this means iv lost ALL my photos from the season and my time in Chile, and now im cameraless. Luckily i backed up my computer before coming away but thats still incredibly gay. I think some of my friends on the season nicked my photos, so maybe i can get them back in the future. At the moment im sharing Hannahs camera.

ANYWAY...after all that my stay in Pucon was really nice. I was spending all my time with Chilleans and really seeing the Chillean way of life. My spanish really improved over these few weeks as i wasnt speaking any english at all, and i was getting to grips more with the slang and crazy expressions the chilleans use amongst themselves.

Pucon is right by a volcano (Vlcan Villarrica) which has a ski resort there. So one day we went up there, we hitched a lift up. There was a competition going on so loads of the Chilleans from El Colorado were there, and some of the gringos. Unfortunately the comp was full by the time we got up there (it was a group thing where u had to take photos etc) so we couldnt take advantage of the 20 quid for 2 days riding offer, and had to pay that for 1 day. It was worth it though, the views are amazing. As its just an isolated Volcano, you can see al of Pucon, the lake Villarrica and hills and snow covered volcanoes in the distance.

We went to the river one day to go fishing...but didnt catch anything. We cooked some sausages and stuff on a bbq and had some drinks there. It was reallly pretty, a nice big river, lots of trees, hills in the background and you could still see the tip of the volcano in the distance. Iv never seen so much different scenery at one time, its really amazing.

Hannah arrived after i had spent a week in Pucon. The first night she arrived we went camping. We hired a little boat by the lake and Nico rowed Hannah, Paola (Nicos friend) and I over the water to a little bit of beach that was only accessable by boat. The boys walked around, and then Nico went back to pick them up so they didnt have to swim! We made a fire which some of the boys went fishing. They came back with a salmon and a trout, so we cooked them over the bbq....gawwjus! It was a really nice evening-night and Hannah was getting her first taste of the chillean language!

At the weekend we went out to the disco, which is called ´La Playa´ and the next day, as it was the last day of the season down in Pucon, we went up the volcano. Hannah, who hadnt snowboarded before, so was very excited got everybody up after a measly 2 hours sleep. We hitched up there again and somehow managed to get a free ticket each for the day as Seba (Nicos brother) knew a guy who knew a guy or something like that. We all took it in turn teaching hannah, who picked it up really quickly! And was flying down the mountain...or should i say Volcano, by the end of the day! The rest of us didnt really do much as we were all feeling a little bit delicate from the night before, it was a little bit cloudy but the views were still breath taking.

Another day we went looking for Diwueñas ( i have no idea how thats spelt. bit they are little circle fruit things that are like mushrooms, with bits of oranges in them that grow on trees). I dont personally like them, but it was fun as there were about 6 or 7 of us, and you had to through sticks up into the branches to try and get them to fall down. We ended up getting loads, and made a salad with them (which i still didnt like, i think Hannah was the only one who actually liked them).

Apart from that in Pucon we were generlly just enjoying living with the family and seeing Chillean life. Nicos family were reallly friendly and welcoming, and always helped out with anything. I´ll definitely go back there at some point during the year to say hi!

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